This blog is about architecture, urbanism, neighborhoods, historic preservation and other elements of the physical environment(s) of Central New York, including Syracuse and its many surrounding towns, villages, farms and natural features.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Going "Dutch": On the Origins of the Ubiquitous Gambrel Roof "Colonial" House

In my Westcott Neighborhood in Syracuse, and in many other areas of the city and inner suburbs developed in the early 20th century, one of the most notable house types is the so-called Dutch Colonial Revival House, with its distinctive gambrel roof. I'm often asked the origins of this house type, with the interlocutor hopeful of some telling historical anecdote. Alas, the history and popularity of the form has less to do with early American history than more modern American marketing.

There is nothing Dutch about the house and it has nothing to do with Dutch heritage. As Daniel Rieff, in his Houses from Books: Treatises, Pattern Books, and Catalogs in
American Architecture, 1738-1950: A History and Guide (University Park, PA,
Penn State university Press, 2000) has pointed out: "Although the house type was recognized as not found in Holland—while common
enough in England —for better or for worse, this house type must be called
“Dutch Colonial,” as it has been for more than ninety years."

Architects had been playing with the gambrel roof for houses since the 1880s, when they were common elements in shingle style houses. There were also some examples beginning around 1900 of the gambrel roof associated with "Colonial" elements In 1907, however, the type with a long shed
dormer (rather than several discrete dormers) by the architect
defined and presented by architect Aymar Embury II in a house he designed for a Garden
City competition.The next year he popularizedthe house typein an article in International Studio (August 1908), “Modern Adaptations
of the Dutch Colonial,” and in 1913 he published a book, The Dutch Colonial
House: Its Origin, Design, Modern Plan, and Construction (1913),
which forever established both type and name. It became popular throughout the United States but it is possible that after Embury's designation it had a special appeal in New York State because of local (but not in Syracuse) Dutch history.

Syracuse, NY. 122 Concord Place. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Dutch Colonial House as described and illustrated in Loizeaux, Classic Houses of the Twenties, "Which Style of Home?"

In plan, however, the
house differed
little from the even more common gable roof house, popularly dubbed
Colonial, though in many of
the Dutch designs the construction of the second floor (bedrooms) and
attic were conflated. The gambrel roof - where each roof slope is broken
into two jointed parts, allowed for more head room on the topmost
story, in what otherwise might have been an attic. In the larger
versions, where the house had two full stories and then a gambrel roof,
the third story became more usable space - with high ceilings and more
light.

In the Westcott neighborhood,the Dutch style is especially evident on the one-block long Concord Place which was mostly developed in the years between 1900 and 1914. A big house at 116 Concord has a gambrel cross-gable, and there is a similar house at 120 Concord. At the east end of the streeteven Arts and Crafts architect Ward Wellington Ward adapted the Dutch style in 1910 for the main wing of the Tuck House, at 126 Concord Place, one of his early houses in the neighborhood.

Even in the teens, the gambrel roof was also being employed in more modest designs such as the New Eden and Tucson house models in the Aladdin Built in a Day House catalog of 1917. These houses derive from the simple gable-front "homestead" house that was come on small farms and more rural lots, but also was an easy-to-built starter home for a family of modest means living on a city street. Slightly more robust versions of these homes can be found throughout the Westcott Neighborhood, including 712 Lancaster Ave. and 115 Clarke Street.

In
the 1920s the Dutch Colonial design was a very popular variant of new
Colonial Revival architecture, especially in the expanding urban and
suburban development area where single family homes were promoted. The
two-story version was favored by proponents of well-design small homes,
and many examples were featured in widely circulated manuals and books
of
house designs during the 1920s. In
the
first three decades of the 20th century, the so-called Dutch design was a
popular one in various building catalogues.

According to Daniel Rieff

Soon versions of it could
be found in mail-order-house company offerings. Aladdin’s
attractively designed “The Lancaster,” “a Dutch Colonial type
and one of the most truly artistic Aladdin homes,” is depicted in
its 1915 catalog. Perhaps reflecting its relative newness as a type,
the copy notes that “The Lancaster [is] an original design from the
Aladdin architects.” It immediately became a popular type. “The
Verona,” a gambrel-roofed house of this type available from Sears
between 1918 and 1926, was another attractive version, with a
surprisingly sumptuous living room twenty-seven feet long, made all
the more appealing in the 1918 catalog by the rich color plates used
to illustrate it.

...Fourteen [Dutch Colonial Homes] were
included in the 1929 compendium Small Homes of Architectural
Distinction: A Book of Suggested Plans Designed by The Architects'
Small House Service Bureau, Inc., edited by Robert T. Jones,
“technical director” of the Bureau. ...Sears
offered thirteen or fourteen models of so-called Dutch Colonial
houses between 1918 and 1937.

In The Books of A Thousand Homes (Vol.
1), compiled by Henry Atterbury Smith and first published in 1923 by the
home Owners Service institute, there are many examples of Dutch
Colonial designs. Vol 1 is reprinted as a Dover edition with the new
title 500 Small Houses of the Twenties (Dover, 1990).

For further reading:

Reiff,
Daniel D. Houses from Books: Treatises, Pattern Books, and Catalogs in
American Architecture, 1738-1950: A History and Guide (University Park, PA,
Penn State University Press, 2000.

About Me

Samuel D. GruberI am a cultural heritage consultant involved in a wide variety of
documentation, research, preservation, planning, publication, exhibition
and education projects in America and abroad.
I was trained as a medievalist, architectural historian and
archaeologist, but for 25 years my special expertise has developed in
Jewish art, architecture and historic sites. My various blogs about Jewish Art and Monuments, Central New York and Public Art and Memory allow me to
clear my email and my desk, and to report on some of my travels, by
passing on to a broader public just some of the interesting and
compelling information from projects I am working on, or am following.
Feel free to contact me for more information on any of the topics
posted, or if you have a project of your own you would like to discuss.

My Upcoming CNY Talks and Tours

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2014 1:00 pm (check for details) Syracuse Stage 820 E. Genesee Street Syracuse, NY 13210 Divided Loyalties: Jews and the Civil War In conjunction with performances of the play The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez I will discuss the involvement of Jews in the Civil War - on the North and south, and something about the often ambivalent Jewish attitude toward American slavery at the time.

Sunday, Feb 16, 2014 11:30 am Congregation Beth Sholom-Chevra Shas Great Synagogues of the World Jews are the “People of Book”, but surprisingly to many, they are also “People of the Building.” Given the opportunity, Jews have built beautiful synagogues for their communities for hundreds of years. Inspired by the detailed architectural accounts in the Bible, and also by their contemporary surroundings, Jews in many places have fulfilled the concept of Hiddur Mitzvah (glorify the commandment) through architecture and architectural decoration. Great synagogues have been built in Europe of since Middle Ages, but especially since the lavish inauguration of the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam in the late 17th century the stream of impressive Jewish buildings has continued with little interruption on every inhabited continent throughout the world. This lecture illustrates this architectural and artistic heritage with historic and contemporary images, and traces its survival in the 21st century with special emphasis on lesser known “great synagogues,” on recently restored buildings, and on some of the newest synagogues built.